Over at the inn, he worked to get everything set up for the party. He put up tables and chairs while she set out bowls and spoons and all the toppings. Before long, everyone on the grounds crew came inside most of them smelling like sunscreen, salt, and sweat.
“All right,” Sheryl said loudly, and everyone quieted down. She smiled around at them, and a rush of pride moved through Gage to watch her take control over the group. She was smart, and strong, and sexy, and he couldn’t wait to be alone with her again.
“Thank you all for working so hard this year,” she said. “The beach looks beautiful, and we got everything done on time, despite a few hiccups and new demands. It’s our annual banana split party.” She gestured to the tables. “But first, I have some bonuses to hand out.” She took a few steps over to the table and picked up a stack of envelopes.
“For solving problems with a smile.” She looked out at the group. “Simon Smith.”
Everyone clapped, and Gage felt their sense of unity, their sense of family, of belonging. And he knew who had established and cultivated that. Sheryl.
She continued with the awards, and then said, “All right. Time to feast!”
Chatter erupted as people got up and started scooping ice cream and spooning on hot fudge. Gage enjoyed himself, talking to a few people he’d seen around—especially Javier. He liked ice cream almost as well as corndogs or the footlongs from the vendor down at South Port, and he ate three bowls before kissing Sheryl and saying, “See you in a bit.”
He had to go to one more meeting with Olympia, and then he’d take Sheryl home. He had something special planned for them that night, and he couldn’t wait to be alone with her.
The meeting was long, and boring, and nothing he didn’t already know. By the time he made it back downstairs to her office, the tables and chairs and leftovers had been cleaned up. His footsteps echoed off the cement in the silence, and he stepped over to Sheryl’s office.
He froze, his heartbeat booming in his chest, his throat, his ears.
There had been a struggle in this office. Sheryl always left everything in its exact-right spot, and she would never leave several folders worth of papers strewn on the floor. Or her laptop open and unsecured. Or her soda sitting on the desk.
Gage spun away from the crime scene, reaching for his phone. He dialed Sheryl first, and her phone rang in the office behind him.
Definitely a problem. She never went anywhere without her phone. Ever.
His next call went to 9-1-1, and he stayed very still and out of the office, just in case there was a clue as to who had taken her or where she’d gone.
Chapter Thirteen
Sheryl banged on the divider between the back of the van where she currently was and the front, where the driver’s seat was. “Let me out of here!” When she’d first been taken from her office, she wasn’t sure if she should fight back or go willingly.
But the crime dramas she liked so much had taught her to never get in a car with someone if she could help it. But the burly men who’d come for her hadn’t given her a choice. She’d asked them who they were and what they wanted, but neither of them had asked. They’d shoved her in the back of this van, where there were no seats and the windows were painted black, and got in the two front seats.
She’d tried the doors on the side and found them locked with no inside door handles. Same for the back door.
So she’d decided to yell—not that it was doing anything.
She knew she couldn’t get off the island without getting on a boat somehow, either a ferry, a sailboat, a yacht, something, and that hadn’t happened. So she was still somewhere on Carter’s Cove.
She’d made peace with Ricky. At least she thought she had. He’d been working for her on the beach for a few days now. He’d skipped the banana split party, as she’d asked him to, and everything was fine.
She’d just finished cleaning up from that shindig and had sat down at her computer to put in the receipts for it. Olympia had strict policies about that, and Sheryl didn’t want to get shut down on her budget by not following the rules.
The outside door had opened, and she’d expected Javier or Gage to darken her doorway. It hadn’t been either of them, and Sheryl hadn’t even really gotten a good look at either man before they were on top of her, grabbing her arms and hauling her out of her office.
She didn’t have her phone, and she was pretty sure she’d knocked several things off her desk as she’d been ripped from the safety of the inn.
How long had gone by?
She pounded on the divider again, using both fists. Her family had had some trouble a couple of weeks ago, getting accused of some graffiti in the high-rise going up just down the street from The Heartwood Inn.
Could this have something to do with that? She’d thought Alissa’s boyfriend’s co-worker had done it, trying to frame the Heartwoods. Sheryl had thought that was all settled. And if there was someone to take for a ransom, it was Olympia, not her.
“Hey!” she yelled again, and miraculously, a partition slid open, revealing a small window into the front of the van.
“Look,” one of the men said, his face filling the window. “We’re not—“
She punched him as hard as she could, pain exploding through her knuckles and up her arm. “Let me out of here right this moment,” she said.
The man yelped and clutched his face with both hands, a string of expletives coming from his mouth. Sheryl didn’t want to get too close lest she get punched too, but she leaned forward and looked at the man driving.
“Get me out of here,” she said, trying to infuse as much anger and danger into her voice as she could. “So help me, I’m going to—”
“We’re not going to hurt you, Sheryl,” he said, glancing at her. “Look, we’re at your house.” He made a turn, and sure enough, he’d pulled into her driveway.
Confused and completely stumped, Sheryl remained silent.
“We need your help to surprise Gage,” the other one said, dabbing at his nose, where a thin trickle of blood trailed out.
“What?” She had no idea what to say. Surprise Gage? Why?
“He didn’t tell you, did he?” the nose-bleeder asked.
“Tell me what? And who are you guys?” Gage hadn’t told her anything, and he was going to get an earful from Sheryl about it. These two muscled men had grabbed her from her office.
All at once, several pieces fell into place. “You’re Marines,” she said.
“I’m Teddy,” the driver said. “And he’s Rudy. We served with Gage right up until his retirement.” He looked at her quizzically. “He never said anything?”
“And it’s his birthday today,” Rudy said, glancing at Teddy. “I bet he didn’t mention that either.”
“Classic Gage,” Teddy said with a small smile. “But we heard about you, and we thought you could help us get Gage real good.”
“He’s mentioned his time in the Marines very little,” she said, wishing she’d asked more. But really, she and Gage had only known each other for ten days, and surely she didn’t have to know everything about him already. “And no, he never said anything about his birthday.”
Her annoyance surged again, and now that she knew she wasn’t in any danger, it had plenty of room to bloom and grow. “He’s going to get an earful, let me tell you.” She patted her back pocket for her phone, remembering she didn’t have it.
“Oh, he’ll be panicked soon enough,” Teddy said. “When he sees your office and you gone….” He burst out laughing, but Sheryl honestly didn’t see how this was a funny joke.
“Won’t he be upset?”
“That’s the point,” Rudy said, opening the front door of the van. “He did this to our CO once, and he thought it was funny then.”
“Gage doesn’t seem like the type to think having the tables turned on him is very funny,” Sheryl said, confident that she knew that much.
“Oh, he’s not.” Teddy got out too, and a moment later, Rudy opened the back door of the van.<
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Sheryl just looked at him. “Where did you get this vehicle?”
“It belongs to my brother. It’s usually full of band equipment. That’s why there are tie-downs here.” He indicated a divot in the floor Sheryl hadn’t even seen.
“I’m calling Gage right now,” Teddy said, appearing at the back of the van. Sheryl scooted toward the opening and let Rudy help her out, a smile on his rugged face now. A tremor of fear still moved through her.
Yes, she and Gage were supposed to spend the evening together. He’d even said he’d ordered dinner and dessert—and more pieces clicked into place. He had been planning to celebrate his birthday with her. He just hadn’t told her yet.
“Hey, bud,” Teddy said beside her. “We’re on the island. Where are you?” He grinned from ear to ear. “I’m sure she’s fine, buddy.”
Sheryl wanted to talk to Gage, but she wanted to do it in private. She indicated to Teddy that she wanted to talk.
“In fact, she’s right here. You want to say hello?”
Sheryl heard Gage yelling as Teddy extended the phone toward her, already laughing.
“…think you’re so funny!” he finished just Sheryl put the phone to her ear. He audibly drew in a deep breath, and she began to see the comedy in the situation. “This is Sheryl, isn’t it?”
“It’s your birthday?” she asked, plenty of bite in her tone.
“You went along with this?” he barked back. “I called the cops, Sheryl. They’re out looking for you.”
“Rudy will call them,” she said, turning to his fellow Marine. “He called the cops.”
“Oh, boy,” Rudy, tapped and swiped and lifted his phone to his ear. “He likes her more than I thought.”
“Totally,” Teddy said, pulling out a pair of shades and settling them on his face. “Better tell him we dognapped Britta too. He’ll go postal.”
“We’re at my house,” Sheryl said. “They have Britta, apparently. Might just want to bring yourself.”
“Michael is picking up the food,” Rudy said, leaning away from his call. “Yes, hello.” He focused back on his phone call, rattling off his Marine rank as if the emergency operator would know what it meant.
Sheryl didn’t and she’d had Gage explain it to her once.
“And your brother—”
“I heard,” he said.
“Are you mad?”
“Yes.”
“They put me in the back of a van,” Sheryl said, turning her back on his friends.
“I’m going to kill them,” he said, his breathing quickening. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.” He hung up without saying anything else, and Sheryl handed the phone back to Teddy.
“I don’t think he sees the humor.” She started for the house. “But we can’t stand out here. We’ll melt.” Exhaustion pulled through every muscle in her body, as it had been a long morning finishing the beach. Then she and Gage had shopped for the banana split party, and she’d hosted that and cleaned up afterward. She kind of wanted the slow, candlelit dinner Gage had promised her—but as Michael pulled up to the curb in front of her house and got out with a few huge bags of food, she knew she wasn’t going to get it.
Sheryl was in her bedroom when Gage arrived, and she stayed there, needing him to have a moment to talk with his friends about what had happened. In the end, she was fine. So she’d ridden in the back of a van for five or six minutes—the total time from the inn to her beach cottage. She’d never been in any real danger.
She unlocked the door at the same time someone knocked on it, so she opened it almost immediately. Gage stood there, his features dark and stormy. Maybe his friends had done her a favor, because wow, he was sexy when he was angry.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He visibly softened, but she wasn’t done with him yet. “Is it really your birthday?”
“Yes.” He ducked his head then.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She put her hand on his chest, feeling the warmth from his body against her palm. His pulse beat steadily, and she realized how attached to him she was. And she barely knew him.
In that moment, everything became crystal clear, and she fell back a step. “You should go celebrate with the people who love you.” Sheryl hated how the words sounded, but she couldn’t change them or pull them back in.
Gage blinked, surprise mixing with the fading fury. “Does that include you?”
“I don’t know, Gage,” she said. “You didn’t even tell me it was your birthday.”
“I was going to. Tonight. While we drifted in that hammock, and I fell more in love with you.”
She heard what he said, but she didn’t know what to do with it. “This feels fast,” she said.
“It is fast.” He looked down the hall and then back at her. “Please come eat. I got that barbecue you like, with all that coleslaw. Nobody else will eat the stuff. And if you want to break up with me tomorrow, fine. But it’s my birthday, so you can’t break up with me today.”
Despite her mood, a smile sprang to her face. “Is that a rule?”
“Yes,” he said simply. “You don’t have a present for me, do you?”
Sadness hit her, and she shook her head. “I would’ve gotten you one, had I known.”
“You’re my gift,” he said, reaching for her. Somehow, he’d managed to turn the moment sweet and romantic with just three words. “Please come eat with us.”
She moved forward when he tugged, and he added, “I can introduce you to them properly.”
“All right,” she said. “But after everyone leaves, you have a lot of explaining to do.”
“Deal,” he said, pressing his lips to her forehead. Sheryl tried not to press into his touch. Tried, and failed, revealing that she’d started to fall for him too.
But that didn’t mean she was happy with his choices.
Chapter Fourteen
“You’ve met Rudy and Teddy,” Gage said, his stomach still swooping from left to right. He’d learned to control it in the military, but he’d been retired for a couple of years now. He knew how to handle stress, and he knew how to keep his eyes peeled for danger. He just hadn’t had to deal with such things much here in Carter’s Cove.
He glared at his friends, whose prank was certainly not funny.
“Yes,” Sheryl said cordially. “I think Rudy was the one who pushed me into the van.” She smiled as she said it, but Gage could hear the undercurrent of discomfort in her voice.
They laughed and Sheryl stepped into her own kitchen to start setting up the food. That was exactly what Gage didn’t want her to do. She’d had a very long day, with several more to come. He did too. He just wanted a quiet night with his girlfriend, and his buddies had ruined it.
Thankfully, the police hadn’t come over, and nothing had gone too far by the time Rudy called to let them know that Sheryl wasn’t in any danger.
No, Gage was the one in trouble, and he knew it. Sheryl wasn’t happy about the false kidnapping either, but that front was all because he hadn’t told her about his birthday.
He moved into the kitchen to help her, mumbling under his breath. “I can do it, Sheryl.”
“It’s fine, Gage.” She put distance between them as she got down cups and started making punch. Gage’s relationship with her was new, but they’d spent an extraordinary amount of time together, and she hated entertaining.
For family functions, she’d told him that they went to her parents house or had events at the inn. That way, she didn’t have to clean up. “Since I spend so much of my job cleaning up after people, I hate doing it at home too.”
And she’d definitely have to clean up after four men, a dog, and herself. Gage turned when Michael said, “Let’s have the cake first.”
The candles were already stuck in the tall, round cake he’d obviously bought somewhere.
“That was your special order?” Sheryl asked, setting plates on the countertop. “My sister made that cake.”
; “It’ll be great then,” Gage said quickly, but Sheryl only frowned at him before she rolled her eyes.
“Gage is a wizard in the kitchen,” Teddy said. “Did you know that, Sheryl?”
“I’ve heard,” she said. “He doesn’t seem to have time to bake for me.”
Gage froze, because the reason he didn’t have time to bake for her was because of her. “Funny,” he said dryly, turning to Rudy. “So what are you guys doing here?” He’d asked them a version of the same question while Sheryl hid in her bedroom. Neither of them had given him a good answer. Instead, they’d told him they’d come for his birthday.
“Celebrating with you,” Rudy said.
“You said that already,” he said, not caring if he made things awkward. They already were anyway. “But really. Why now?”
“Listen, man,” Teddy said, clapping him on the shoulder. Gage looked at his hand and then looked at Teddy, and the other man removed his fingers from Gage’s body. “The old windbag had surgery.” He shrugged. “Thought you might like to go with us to visit him in the hospital.”
Gage automatically rejected the idea. “I have two jobs I’m working right now,” he said. Three, if he counted Sheryl, and managing his relationship with her was definitely a full-time job, one he had no idea how to do.
“We can go whenever,” Rudy said. “Doesn’t have to be when he’s in the hospital. He had a hip replaced. He’s got a long recovery ahead of him.”
“Who’s the old windbag?” Sheryl asked. “For those of us not in the Marines.”
“I like her,” Teddy said, beaming at Sheryl. She smiled back at him, the gesture fading when she moved her gaze to Gage.
“Our sergeant,” Gage said.
“I thought you were a sergeant,” Sheryl said, her beautiful eyes coloring with confusion.
“He is,” Teddy said. “I was Staff Sergeant, one step above him. The old windbag is our Master Sergeant. Led our whole group.”
“Makes sense,” Sheryl said, but Gage knew in her mind, it didn’t.
“He was my boss,” Gage said. “Sort of like Olympia is your boss.”
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